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the six levels of validation how do you validate when it's difficult to find the validity in the book doing dialectical behavior therapy Kelly corner describes six levels of validation which can be helpful in referencing when you're struggling with finding the validity in another person's point of view the higher the level the more intensely we're validating and of course we want to try to validate at the highest level but that's not always possible at minimum on our level one we want to show interest and be awake now this sounds fairly simple but if you've ever absolutely disagreed or been irritated with another person to the point that you didn't even want to listen you know that achieving a level one is a pretty magnificent accomplishment you may have the desire to frown or shake your head or eye roll or put your hands over your ears or walk away even so the showing interest in being awake involves giving the other person their time and giving them the respect of listening as a therapist maybe we don't have the urge to walk out of the room but we may look at them in a way with our head cocked that looks skeptical we may project some nonverbals out toward them and that says I don't really believe you or come on give me a break so at our level one we also want to make sure that we're listening and we're not checking our phone or writing something down instead of listening intently and if you've ever had if you've been a therapist and you've ever had the flu been sick in some way been up with a child the night before staying awake is not a small task so as long as we're doing this level when showing interest in being awake we're at least on the path to our higher levels of validation level two is accurate reflection now we need to make sure we're not only using level 2 and sounding like a parrot or what other people make fun of therapist is sounding like just bouncing back what the other person said without putting any skin in the game and articulating an opinion at level 2 we're reflecting what the patient is saying but again we're not only using a level 2 so there are some sender and receiver exercises I know that the imago model of couples therapy has some great practices and I use them in training new therapists new students in how to send a message to you know you send a message to your partner and then the partner reflects back exactly what was said it's much more difficult than it seems on the surface and I highly recommend practicing this in consult group practicing the sender receiver with short small messages to see just how difficult it is and as you can imagine when emotions run high our ability to accurately reflect what a person said it drops down so for example the sender may say I don't like it when you forget to take out the trash and the receiver says I heard you say that you don't like it when I forget to take out the trash did I get that and the sender says yes and then the receiver says is there more and the sender may say yes or no so that would be an example of a practice exercise to use if you're trying to improve your ability to reflect and of course that checking for accuracy is important because we may think we heard something what one word can make a huge difference in the entire message itself we're moving up in our levels at level three we want to put ourselves in the other person's position I wouldn't be able to read emotions and thoughts and check for accuracy imagine what it is like to be them so we're getting deeper here and here's an example since you're feeling like things aren't changing are you wondering whether you made the right decision to even start DBT to begin with okay so with that statement you can see that we have listened we've shown interest in we're awake we're reflecting back that the person feels like things aren't changing they must have said this you know things aren't changing but then we're going deeper into imagining what it's like to be them I mean if I'm in their situation I'm feeling like things aren't changing it doesn't matter if it's in therapy if it's in exercise class if I'm seeing a physician and I'm feeling like I'm not getting any better if I've got a gardener and they're trying to rehab my lawn and if I'm having the thought that things aren't changing one of the thoughts that I'm gonna have and you're gonna have is did I make the right decision choosing this individual did I make the right decision going down this path of potential progress should I've gone another route implied in that also is should I change paths so we could even say that we could say are you thinking about doing something else and that puts us at a level three for moving up to a level four we're going to validate based on history now this is the history that we know that the patient came in with we know about their past and taking their past into consideration what can we say then so if we take this same example of since you're feeling like things aren't changing are you wondering whether you made the right decision and even starting DBT to begin with we can also take it up a notch and validate based on their history so you could say something like that has to be extremely frustrating considering that you've been through five therapists before and none of them have been able to help you and no wonder you're as angry as you are and another example if we're taking another example entirely we might say it makes sense you'd be irritated you don't like to be told what to do because your abusive father did that so we know the patient we're privy to some of the private information that they've shared and we're taking that into context as we're validating giving them a message I know you I know you I get you higher than that we're going up above level five validate based on current circumstances not just on their history but that the behavior makes sense for anyone so here's an example it makes sense that you'd be irritated I was being bossy okay so I hope you can see how this almost radical genuineness which is a level six this open non defensive therapist acknowledging their part it can be super validating because we're not saying that oh you're irritating because your patient or you've had a piece of experiences we're saying you're feeling this way because it is this way that that is an extraordinary experience for the person to have their general circumstances validated based on anybody would feel this way so I started to mention the radical genuineness this is the ultimate highest level level six it's not possible that we're going to be able to validate at the level six all the time but when we can it's great because radical genuine involves communicating as you would with someone who is an equal rather than a patient or someone who's disordered or someone who needs help if we're being radically genuine we might laugh at a joke instead of redirecting it or implying that it's somehow inappropriate we might self disclose how many children we have and a client asks instead of asking you know well why would you ask that so we're gonna relate with them like we would with anybody not like we're afraid of them or not like we are trying to therapies them we might let tears fall we might use expletives we're going to be our true selves at this level we might even confront a client on their BS that is that calling out the elephant in the room for both sitting here we both no that's a bunch of BS and I'm gonna say hey come on now that's new crap and we both know it then that can be it's speaking to the truth is speaking to something that you and I both know particularly in substance abuse treatment calling out that elephant in the room and being real is radical genuineness the point is to be a real live human being not some weird space cadet therapist e-type who they could never be like when we're not being genuine when we're being false then the patient has the idea that either something is wrong with them or something is wrong with you like there's something wrong with them that they could never be this magical angelic person like you are or thinking that you are just a fake and a fraud and neither one of those options is something that we want to portray so as long as we're communicating it genuinely truthfully then we're more apt to hit that level 6 of validation key points there are six levels of validation and DBT the highest of which is referred to as radical genuineness radical genuineness involves the therapists as human and an equal it involves engaging in authentic manner not taking themselves too seriously or ignoring the obvious